Some people ruin it for everyone....

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txhoghunter

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This is a reply to a post on the handgun forum where someone is asking about a .45 ACP or a 9mm for hog hunting....

He shot his hog (130 lbs) 11 times before it went down to stay.
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(The "he" being referred to is the poster's buddy)

It is people like this that give hunters (and gun people by association) a bad reputation. Can we not just get a gun adequate for the game we are hunting??

I don't go hunting for an animal knowing that even with a "premium bullet" it will still take at least 2 shots to humanely put an animal down. Ethics say, take a gun that can make a clean kill, with minimal suffering. That to me means one shot, one kill. Especially when there are plenty of guns available that can accomplish this feat. I would even go so far as to say that there are more guns out there that can kill a pig with one shot than there are that can't.

Am I alone in this thought??
 
Hogs are big rats. Long as it dies.....:D Yeah, I knew a guy and his buddy that were squirrel hunting and found a hog with their 10/22s. His description of the kill wasn't pretty. I posted the story here and lots of people jumped on ME for it. Hey, I was just relaying the story. I really wouldn't wanna be face to face with a hog peeving him off with a .22. :D
 
I've trapped a lot of hogs and shot 'em in the head with lesser calibers and killed them, includes .22LR
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This is a trapped hog, the guy who I quoted was "hunting". Meaning they were not trapped, and were very capable of attacking. Would you "hunt" a hog with a .22 LR?
 
woops, gotcha, my bad....

In your opinion though, what is the smallest pistol caliber that you would actually hunt one with? I ask because I have no experience with handgun hunting, I just personally do not see a .45 ACP as enough. But I am curious as to what others successfully hunt them with
 
really? we have trapped hogs, cut the balls off the boars live, put a notch in their ear to be identified as a ball-less hog, so they can fatten up and be shot at a later date, and actually taste halfway decent.

I say we stop worrying about what anti hunters think. They're never going to think any form of hunting is suitable, so why try to appease them.
 
45 acp out to 30 yards is perfectly capable of killing hogs. A 500 S@W with a bad shot at 30 yards will not kill a hog quickly. Hogs are tough and sometimes dont die quickly even when mortaly wounded.
 
To answer your question kyle, this...
Its not the anti hunters I worry about, its the rest of the voting population that I worry about
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Yes, when it comes down to it, their vote counts just as much as yours and mine
 
I still don't see why that post is so offensive to hunters...

a 45 acp is more than adequate to kill a 130 lb hog. Perhaps it was nerves, and the person just kept shooting it? who knows.

I guess he could have shot it once or twice, and let it kick for a few minutes.... probably would have had the same end result.

I shot a hog in the head with a 223 a couple years ago, and blew its brains out...literally. it kicked for several minutes. was it dead? I'm pretty sure it was....

last season one of the guys was cleaning a hog. It didn't have a head. It didn't have any hide. It didn't have any guts, and I'm pretty sure the backstraps were cut out of it.

You could see muscles twitching in the hind quarters at this point. It wasn't severe enough to make the leg kick, but you could certainly see some very small twitching within the muscle tissue.
 
I still don't see why that post is so offensive to hunters...
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This offends me because the way I was brought up hunting was to make a clean kill, whether the animal is considered a nuisance or not. If you know the game you are going after, you prepare accordingly. Now, if you are walking along and stumble upon a pig, yes this is understandable.

But when people who are looking for a reason to limit guns and hunting see a story like this, it makes ALL of us look bad...
 
Lets face it we are never going to change the minds of those who are adamantly anti hunter. However, we can influence those who are neither anti or pro. They are the largest portion of the population and the ones we need to worry the most about influencing.

The biggest problem we face with anti hunters is the fact that they are well organized and have the ability to run very effective add campaigns, while we fight and argue among ourselves about stupid things.

It is there for in our best interest as outdoors men and sportsmen and hunters to be on our best behavior and to do our best to get along with each other.
 
the entire purpose of my last post, was that clean kill or not, you can't control the entire functionality of an animals central nervous system.

by quoting a single line from my post, it's clear to me that you aren't looking at the entire story.
 
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Kyle I was answering your question, that is why only one line is quoted.

I understand that nerves cause kicking even after an animal is gone. What I am saying I have a problem with is the fact that the proper measures for making a clean, humane kill were not taken.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but knowing that there is a good chance that the gun I am holding will take more than one shot to humanely kill an animal means that I am holding the wrong gun....not that I should shoot the animal 11 times to make sure its dead.

I wouldn't go Elk Hunting with a .243, just as I wouldn't go hog hunting with a .45 ACP. Yes, a couple shots from a .243 will kill an elk, but I make the extra effort for the sake of the game I am hunting to make it as close to painless as possible.


^^That was the point of my original post, and I was steering the conversation back that way, not picking and choosing through your post
 
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Properly loaded, the .45ACP is perfectly suited to taking small to mid-sized hogs. Just don't wanna go about it with 185gr JHP's.
 
If a 45 ACP is adequate to stop a 130 lb. man, it is more than adequate to take a 130 lb hog.
 
If a 45 ACP is adequate to stop a 130 lb. man, it is more than adequate to take a 130 lb hog
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Hunting and stopping an attacker are two COMPLETELY different things

Again, yes it will kill it. But I am talking about being an ethical hunter, and for that matter just a smart hunter. For my sake I would like to kill mr. piggy with a shot and drop; not give him a chance to attack.

This thread is not bashing the .45 ACP people, I personally love it. I just wouldn't choose it for hog hunting unless it was as a back up. I started this to see if anyone else was against shooting an animal 11 times and claiming that it is "hunting".
 
There is no way the 13th shot did that pig in...I'm sure the 2nd or third did...and either way there are atupis people everywhere..they drive past you in their cars everyday...you giving them your time to repeat their ignorance( assuming this guy was. I wasn't there) is only keeping it going.. he didn't ruin anything for me...I see road hunters, trespassers, and dead deer that never got recovered.....it is what it is.... I don't like it but unless they do it on my land, not my problem... and in the end they are only animals... my ethics teach not to torture or waste them....but my ethics are not everyones ethics....so it is what it is.... I guess I don't see any difference in shooting a pig 37 times than shooting a prairie dog with a varmint grenade
 
Hunting has a learning curve that people hopefully move up on by their personal experience and experiences of others. That's one reason hunters passionately debate minimum calibers and such.

Anytime someone has to shoot an animal multiple times with the same round, one should probably think about whether the shooter, the bullet, or the platform was suitable for the circumstances.
 
I think suzukisam is correct. The issue wasn't the number of shots, it was the issue that the shooter didn't recognize the difference between a dead animal, and nerves. I have killed plenty of animals that hit hte ground dead, and still kick. I shoot the vast majority of my deer in the neck. Last year I shot a cull buck in the neck, and severed his spine with the shot... and he "kicked" on the ground for a few minutes.

Should I have continued to shoot him until he stopped kicking? No.... he was dead, and sometimes death isn't a pretty thing. that's just the way it goes.
 
If it took 13 shots the problem was not the gun or load, it was probably a lack of shooting skill.
 
A 230gr SWC will kill a hog graveyard dead if placed properly. 130lb is a small hog, I would feel comfortable with this load for hogs up to 300lbs. There is ZERO unethical about it and I would expect them to go down as quickly as if shot with a .44Mag. Like I said, you just don't want to use hardball or a lightweight JHP. I would have to test 230gr JHP's on smaller hogs to find out how big a hog they'll drop. I want complete penetration if I can get it.
 
I shoot them behind the ear with a 22lr but I rather have a 30-30.
 
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